Grandma Lueker's Cranberry-Orange Relish

In honor of Thanksgiving, I thought I'd share one of my favorite recipes with you guys!

Last year, we hosted my in-laws for Thanksgiving, and my mother-in-law Kimberlae asked me to make this cranberry relish for her instead of the traditional cranberry sauce.

Since I don't really care for cranberry sauce, I readily agreed to try it her way!

According to Kimberlae, this was her grandmother Martha Lueker's recipe. Grandma Lueker was from Germany, and, according to Kimberlae, all good Lutherans can make a jello recipe for any occasion! Grandma Lueker apparently used to make this with an old hand grinder that clamped to the counter and all the juice would run down the cabinets to the floor! 

I just love these details about old relatives. It gives a special meaning to the recipe for me, even if it IS mostly just jello ;) Tradition is super fun, and I like to think that generations of women before me have made and served this for Thanksgiving. 

The recipe calls for 2 cups of cranberries and a small orange - since I don't have an old hand grinder, I put them together in the blender. Make sure there are no seeds in your orange! I squeezed the juice out to give it a little liquid to help the blending process. I also went ahead and used a whole bag of cranberries, even though it was technically more than two cups. Maybe that explains why my blender almost overflowed at the end...

Sometimes the blending is a wee bit difficult. Don't worry if it won't all blend. 

Because....

You're gonna mix a package of strawberry jello, 3 Tablespoons of sugar, and a Tablespoon of vinegar into a cup and a half of boiling water. When it's all dissolved, just pour it into your blender and mix some more!

It looks like a delicious smoothie! And I'm not gonna lie, it was tempting to me to drink it like this.

You can either pour it all into one large jello mold or put it in individual serving dishes, like I did. I made 14 in all (which is actually a double recipe, but it won't all fit in the blender at once!) because I'm having 13 people total for Thanksgiving dinner next week. The extra one is for me to eat early, because I just can't wait! 

I hope you all love it as much as I do! I really like that it utilizes fresh cranberries instead of cooking them, it is so fresh and such an amazing, light, almost spongy texture! 

Enjoy!